7.1.5. - not just a number tuning.

[Stryker-88]

Ill be happy if we get to the point that we are doing relevant dps. Being out dps'd by players in lower gear is frustrating especially when you are putting in so much effort.

[Unlockmyhrt]

It might have been common, that doesn't make it right. Moreover, you are overlooking the fact that (a) it now involves levelling up your artifact for the endgame specs and (b) the warlock specs at least are much more niche.

Basically, affliction and destruction are awful where they can't multidot or permanently cleave the whole fight , and demo and affliction are awful when it comes to killing priority adds because of their rampup and dreadful target switching

How many other classes do you see having to swap specs every boss? Mages? Priests? Rogues?

Affliction has such awful, awful numbers in a pure single target you do feel forced to swap to say demo because frankly you otherwise just embarass yourself , you can pull much higher percentiles and have fifteen or more ilevels and you will still get stomped into the dust by the godclasses. But why shold anyone feel pressured into playing demo when they might not like it? Remembering that the devs themselves razed WoD demonology to the ground with "we don;t want people to feel forced into playing something they might not otherwise choose just because it's the best"

- - - Updated - - -



It is also crap at target switching and killing priority adds because of it's ramp, guardian pets that won;t switch at all, reliance on a melee pet

Unfortunately it is a virtual given that boss fights include "kill this quick" mechanics

All of the warlock specs are niche specialised: affliction is AOE, destruction is cleave, demo is tunneled single target. And they are all mediocre to bad performers outsid eof their specialisation.

That is helped along by the talents, which for warlocks are very restrictive.

If you play a fire mage mm hunter or whatnot, you soon realise what it is like to play a well-rounded spec/class, with tools to deal with anything, with a minimal need to swap talents and you don't face cliff-edge choices where doing better aoe (by taking say Living Bomb) do not drive a wrecking ball through your single target (because Unstable Mind, on the same line, represents a pretty small loss)

Compare this to taking Sow the Seeds and losing Siphon Life, or taking Fire n Brimstone and thereby losing Eradication. Moreover, Sow the Seeds and FnB are pure single target losses: they have absolutely no use whatever except doing AOE. They simply take a baseline spell and spread it to multiple targets.

These are all valid points, and yeah I guess it kinda sucks having to switch specs based on fights. But when it comes to cleave and priority adds Destro is one of the best specs for it, I easily can pull top damage on high priority adds, although my ST might now be of epic proportions, that alone can ensure you a raid spot and for cleave fights you do pretty damn good on the meters.

What I mainly do when I raid is play the spec that best suites my raid, its easy to say Oh we suck at ST, sometimes your raid needs the cleave, sometimes it needs the ST damage.

Here is an example, during Eye progression I played destruction and was doing some amazing dps, especially when it came to Priority adds that needed to die ASAP but we kept wiping at about 15-20 million during phase 2. I switched to Demo for the next few pulls and we ended up killing the boss. I ended up doing about 16 more million Damage to the eye as demo and I feel that is what pushed us over for the kill. I mean yeah it sucks to be good at one or the other, but our dps is competitive either way.

And you were right about demonology being gutted because they did not want people to be forced into a spec, and this was due to the fact that Demonology at the time was the best spec by far just due to it being great ST and AOE baked in with Amazing movement, there was no reason to play any other spec.

[Baconeggcheese]

Ill be happy if we get to the point that we are doing relevant dps.

You should be happy already then :P

[Unlockmyhrt]

Ill be happy if we get to the point that we are doing relevant dps. Being out dps'd by players in lower gear is frustrating especially when you are putting in so much effort.

Might be the player and not the class

[Soulzar]

Demo is not great ST. Stop this bullshit already.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...853&dataset=95

It is middle of the pack. Virtually 9th place.

Great ST specs are shadow priest, feral druid, assassination rogue, arms warrior for example.

Demo is a middle class ST spec and bottom class aoe spec.

Lol, "Virtually 9th place" .. Priceless.

Those #7 Spriest have it made with their godly ST spec... and here we are all the way down the list 2 spots at #9 like chumps.

[Rorixis]

Demo is not great ST. Stop this bullshit already.

https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...853&dataset=95

It is middle of the pack. Virtually 9th place.

Great ST specs are shadow priest, feral druid, assassination rogue, arms warrior for example.

Demo is a middle class ST spec and bottom class aoe spec.

Oh boy I hope they nerf affli its so OP: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...et=95&sample=7

See how this works?

[Lucrece]

Oh boy I hope they nerf affli its so OP: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...et=95&sample=7

See how this works?

No, because we're talking meaningful damage, not padding oozes or other adds.

There's a single true single target fight in mythic, Nythendra, and demo is not "great" at it.

Lol, "Virtually 9th place" .. Priceless.

Those #7 Spriest have it made with their godly ST spec... and here we are all the way down the list 2 spots at #9 like chumps.

You mean, a fight in which a spec who can't abuse StM and yet who's far more capable at cleave DPS is still performing ahead of demo who can just turret bosses effectively?

[Deleted]

Lol, "Virtually 9th place" .. Priceless.

Those #7 Spriest have it made with their godly ST spec... and here we are all the way down the list 2 spots at #9 like chumps.

Shadow Priests outperform demo when demo is utilising it's particular niche - tunneling one single target

Shadow Priests stomp all over demo when it comes to cleaving/multidotting, they are also better at target switching because demo has just about the highest rampup in the game, which is made worse by crappy guardian pets that will not switch unless their original target is dead

And then of course, there are fights where SP's can abuse surrender to madness....

In other words, demonology is middle of the pack even in something where it can deploy it;s singular strength and not get tripped up by it's multiple weaknesses

[Auracle]

No, because we're talking meaningful damage, not padding oozes or other adds.

There's a single true single target fight in mythic, Nythendra, and demo is not "great" at it.




You mean, a fight in which a spec who can't abuse StM and yet who's far more capable at cleave DPS is still performing ahead of demo who can just turret bosses effectively?

The point of his post was to highlight that you are cherry-picking data to suit you argument, which is a problem with the complaining in general. If you're upset about something, you are going to find supporting evidence for it, it's human nature (google 'confirmation bias' if you're curious).

If we examine your statistical support a little more closely, we're going to find the following imbalances unaccounted for:
1) Nythendra Mythic isnt a single target fight. If you really need some kind of numbers to back a point, try heroic.
2) Drop your percentiles. 95th% suffers from greater statistical variance due to smaller sample size and inability to factor legendaries (which are not balanced across classes at all, but are, for obvious reasons, heavily over-represented in the top 5% of parses).

I'm not trying to undermine you just for the sake of it. I've read a lot of pro/con arguments for warlock spec performance since Legion launched, as have we all, and I believe we aren't in a good place (by comparison to past content) and improvements could be made. I worry when I see these numbers brought in as supporting evidence however. They dont paint the picture many seem to think they do, and they should be used with great caution as support for criticism of a class or spec's performance.

[Rorixis]

No, because we're talking...

Okay you just wooshed right pass that one.

[Archimand]

RE and siphon life baseline please,why dont we have all our toolkit baseline instead of via talent i dont know ...

forced to give up single target for aoe isnt fun

[Lucrece]

Okay you just wooshed right pass that one.

If you think you've got contextually correct/sound numbers to support the claim that demo is great for single target DPS relative to the other specs, feel free to post your links.

[Auracle]

If you think you've got contextually correct/sound numbers to support the claim that demo is great for single target DPS relative to the other specs, feel free to post your links.

You completely missed my point, because, again, you're fixated on proving your own.

I'll humor you for a lark. Lets say; I'm invested in demo (im not), I wanted to support the earlier comment about its ST prowess (not mine, arbitrary statement, dont care personally), and I believed warcraft logs offered conclusive statistical evidence of cross class performance (it doesn't).

Allowing for that: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...3&difficulty=4. Demo is 3rd. 75th% to reduce legendary and other bias, heroic for pure single target and a much larger sample size. Still not a great indicator, but better than the one you used and probably the best available if you really need something to point a finger at. Caveats apply for ilvl, fight length and a host of other factors that are in play that do not equally affect DPS cross-class.

Another: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...metric=bossdps. Nythendra Mythic boss damage only. Demo 6th, but effectively equal 4th. 75th percentile. Same caveats.

Out of genuine curiosity - what ST ranking would be acceptable to you to assuage your sentiment that it is too weak by comparison to other classes? Based on the data available on warcraft logs, for pure ST demo is exceptionally competitive with all but apparently assassination rogues.

[Tuskchi]

Are they finally going to bring the old animation for UD/Male for Immolation? For 10+ years I've been casting it with the upper hands motion ... it's not a freaking shadow-bolt or soul-flame to channel it down below ...

[Lucrece]

You completely missed my point, because, again, you're fixated on proving your own.

I'll humor you for a lark. Lets say; I'm invested in demo (im not), I wanted to support the earlier comment about its ST prowess (not mine, arbitrary statement, dont care personally), and I believed warcraft logs offered conclusive statistical evidence of cross class performance (it doesn't).

Allowing for that: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...3&difficulty=4. Demo is 3rd. 75th% to reduce legendary and other bias, heroic for pure single target and a much larger sample size. Still not a great indicator, but better than the one you used and probably the best available if you really need something to point a finger at. Caveats apply for ilvl, fight length and a host of other factors that are in play that do not equally affect DPS cross-class.

Another: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/statist...metric=bossdps. Nythendra Mythic boss damage only. Demo 6th, but effectively equal 4th. 75th percentile. Same caveats.

Out of genuine curiosity - what ST ranking would be acceptable to you to assuage your sentiment that it is too weak by comparison to other classes? Based on the data available on warcraft logs, for pure ST demo is exceptionally competitive with all but apparently assassination rogues.

Excluding legendaries is just dumb. They are part of the class balance, whether people like it or not. A destro warlock without feretory is night and day with a destro warlock with it.

A large aspect of what's propping up havoc DH in single target is that legendary ring, without it their single target goes down the dumpster.

What I would consider great single target for a spec with utter garbage aoe and cleaving capacity is top 3. There's no reason a spec like demo should be losing to assassination, shadow priests, let alone enhancement shaman (which is a braindead spec, I mained one all up to HFC, it's about as easy or easier than demonhunter) in single target when those specs are doing MUCH better 2-3 target damage.

The problem with your 75th percentile is it also weeds out noticeably hard specs. Feral climbs up as you go up the percentiles because it's the hardest spec bar none in the game playing the optimal BT/JW/LI/SR talent setup. So feral looks worse than it is at that percentile because most people at that percentile cannot perform well with feral.

Demo is a spec with ample limitations, and despite those limitations can't even afford to call itself king at the one niche it's not terrible in.

Nythendra is also rather kind to casters by comparison to the melee, so those assassination rogue/feral parses could be higher, whereas demo is dealing with a pretty much ideal situation where they don't have to move much and their downtime on the boss is next to minimal. That skews the single target meter by a good bit.

[Deleted]

That's the point isn't it? Demo shold be king at single target tunneling because that's all it's really good at. It's being beaten by plenty of other classes at it's own speciality, whilst they stomp all over it almost evrywhere else.

Demo is only really supreme at single target compared to affliction and destruction. Compared to other classes it is merely competent. And that's the problem, demo is in all-class terms merely competent at what it's best at, and the classes beating it at it's own game are patently way better at most other things.

all warlock specs have this issue - demo is a single target tunneler, destro is a cleaver, affliction is an aoe specialist with multi-dotting on the side. But even in fights that tend to favour their strengths they are beaten by other classes, the most glaring exception being destruction cleave on the dragons, and anytime a fight doesn;t cater to those singular strengths they trail way behind.

Mythic raids pull warlock sup because they turn almost every fight into cleave/multidot fests and for affliction you can use soul effigy/absolute corruption to keep damaging bosses when no-one else can as they are either unreachable or there's more important things to deal with.

It doesn;t help that number sget extremely bent for affliction because there are so few darn parses. The few that there are, they are likely die-hards who can absolutely wring every last drop out of affliction.

The sad truth is that afflocks particularly are no absent because peopel are failing to recognise how strong and fun to play they are. It's because everyone has recognised they are on the whole boring and unrewarding, and even the devs have finally admitted that affliction warlocks are designed for content of a decade ago, and are fast becoming obsolesent in modern fast paced play where burst dominates.

Why would you want to exclude legendaries? Because doing so makes demo look better? But legendaries exist, they are in the game, some people have them. Demo locks have them, so do other classes.

It's liek saying "ah but w eneed to exlude tier armour"

[Deleted]

The main reason affliction is so underrepresented is not that its bad. It isnt so bad, and people that ignored the general bias towards the spec, lvled it and optimized stats are actually doing good with it. The thing is only big fans of affliction played affliction, because since the start of legion everyone was trash talking about the spec and it was considered (i say considered because the majority hasnt tested the spec at that point, they were just parroting opinions of others) one of the worst specs in the game. And after all that bias you had many people who put like 13 points into the artifact, played it for like 3 hours, failed (God forbid they couldnt demolish everything that easy) and then continued the hate towards the spec. You cant ignore the fact the people are impatient and if they expect something to be bad they put much less effort to make it work.

Maybe you have to do more to perform good than with other specs and maybe even if you do the reward isnt justified, but thats another discussion. The point is affl is definetely not a trash spec.

Also you cant compare legendaries with tier sets...tier sets you know where they drop, you know how to get them and you can plan to do so. Legendaries are just rng.You know that at some point you ll get one, but have no control over anything else. If their addition in the game is good or bad is again another discussion and hasnt anything to do with warlocks specifically.

I have seen all warlock specs perform well and carry their weight just fine in all endgame raid encounters that are available in the game at the moment. They are not the top specs in the game and they can use many QoL improvements, true but for the most part they are solid. Just curius, at what point would you be satisfied with the state of warlocks? Because it just sounds that would be when Demo is the top dps spec in the game for Nyth and Ursoc, destro for Dragons.xavius,cenarius and affl for the rest..and thats called being op kidna.

[Auracle]

@ Nebiroth/Lucrece

Addressing only specifically your complaint about excluding legendaries:

Because, and PLEASE, go read what I wrote, my point was that the statistical data you're using to back your points is unreliable. Specifically within the 95th percentile you have a huge error variance due to the tool's (warcraftlogs) inability to balance for legendaries.

I'm NOT saying legendaries don't matter when comparing classes and looking at DPS, they obviously do. I'm saying they make the tool you're trying to use to substantiate your claims a lot less reliable. That was my original point, that it's unreliable and you need to be really careful when drawing conclusions from what you see there.

Regarding the rest of what you've said, yes, sure. I'm not in complete agreement but I understand the frustration.

[Sunlighthell]

It's kinda funny to see people with such high expectations. Remeber. They still not fixed bugs from ALPHA. Like sweet souls one. Currently I believe that we will end up nerfed more somehow.

[Nadiru]

The Warlock debate seems to fall squarely into two camps: "Respeccing is bad" and "respeccing is good/necessary." For people who see respeccing as a tool in their DPS kit to do more damage, Warlocks probably seem fine. You spec Demo and Aff and pull numbers where you realistically could top meters in a raid by outplaying the other DPS. For people who think respeccing is indicative of a design failure, Warlocks are one of the worst classes in the game, having to respec multiple times in a raid.

In the interest of full disclosure, I tend to agree with the 'respeccing is bad' group, largely because Blizzard has pushed this expansion as being "the class fantasy" expansion. Except specs are all disconnected from each other, not only in gameplay but also through the Artifact system, so the experience is "spec fantasy" in practice...except none of the Warlock specs are actually good at everything so a lot of the time that class fantasy comes with the feeling of being useless.